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I don't hear much discussion on her, but I'm really enjoying her most recent Tales From Earthsea short stories. I haven't read much of her - just these and a former short story collection, A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, both of which I bought because they had pretty covers.
I find her fantasy smart, though, and she deftly avoids all the fantasy cliches of the Goodkind type to create an interesting mix of nerdiness and philosophy.
Every once in a while her strangely feminist flavor of propaganda seeps through, but I just cover it with newspaper until it's all soaked up.
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Yeah, she's one of the SF authors that I would recommend to anyone at all (not just SF people) as being just a really wonderful author. I love the first 3 novels in the Earthsea series best, especially the second one The Tombs of Atuan, but even better are her SF novels, I think. My favorites are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven. One of my favorite writers of all time!
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Wow I love her! Our class read "The Wizard of Earthsea" in middle school and it was my favorite story at the time, not to mention my first adventure into sciance fiction. It was five years later that I found and read the rest of that series...and realized they're not really kids books! Wow, that brings back really good memories. I've had trouble getting into some of her other stuff...any suggestions for books that are very similar to the "Earthsea" ones?
added: ak, did you see the "Lathe of Heaven" movie?
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I didn't see the movie, no! I wish I had. Did they do a good job of it? I really love that book but LHoD is probably my all time favorite of hers. I've read it a lot of times.
There was another fantasy novel of hers I liked a great deal called The Beginning Place, I think. Also an SF novel that you might really like called The Eye of the Heron. That last one is probably the thing of hers that most reminds me of the Earthsea books.
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Well, see, that's the thing. I never read the book but the movie was so weird that I never tried. I consider myself pretty open to all kinds of weirdness, so you can tell that it was pretty strange. Was the book like that, like "What's going on?" kind of weird?
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We actually had a short story of hers in our 8th grade English textbook, if you can believe it. I don't remember the title... something about dragons... I don't know if it was an excerpt from Earthsea or not.
Have you read Fisherman of the Inland Sea, Ak or PSI?
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Well, no, it made sense. The guy George Orr had dreams sometimes that when he woke up the world would have changed to be like his dream was. It bothered him because people sometimes got killed and stuff. I mean once when he was a teenager his aunt was driving him nuts, for instance, cause she was staying at their house, and so he dreamed she was killed in a car wreck and woke up and it was true. His dream had been effective.
So he tried to quit dreaming but of course you can't, so he tried to quit sleeping at all by taking pills but he got caught getting pills off other people's pharm cards and got sentenced to go see this sleep doctor.
Anyway the doctor realizes George Orr really can change the world with his dreams, so he starts using him to remake the world the way he wants it to be.
I won't tell more cause that might spoiler it but it all made sense. It's a great book.
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Yes, Annie, I've read Fisherman. I've read everything of hers that's out, in fact, even her translation of the Tao Te Ching. Posts: 2843 | Registered: A Long Time Ago!
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Annie- Yeah, her story was in my textbook too. I think it was the entire "Wizard of Earthsea" tho. No, I haven't read that one.
ak- Well, everything you said is in the movie, but you never figure out why he's seeing the doctor, or why the ending happens like it does, or WHO is that guy that is in every situation as a different guy and seems to know exactly what is going on? Nothing is tied together very well.
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There aren't many stories that stick persistently with me, but "The Stone that Changed Things" from Fisherman really does. I can't decide if I love it or hate it.
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Annie, are you positive it was LeGuin and not McCaffrey? "The Littles Dragon Boy" is anthologized in many middle school readers.
I haven't read the Earthsea books, but I have read most of LeGuin's sf. I have appreciated it, but I am not as enthusiastic about it as ak or OSC are. OSC often claims LeGuin as a significant influence, but I enjoy his books so much more than hers. The one I enjoyed most I think was the most recent one, The Telling. That one actually influenced the novel I'm currently working on quite a bit.
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Yeah, I know it was LeGuin because of the atrocious way in which my Enlgish teacher pronounced her last name.
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I enjoyed the Earthsea series...but I absolutely loathed the book "Eye of the Heron", I think it was called? Have any of you read it? I was disgusted after I finished reading it. I just really, really didn't like it. Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I went to high school too early - all the stuff you kids read in middle/highschool now were considered extracurriculars in my day - I loved all the sci-fi/fantasy and read it, on my own time, repeatedly, but I also had to slog through all the other stuff -
which is good, don't get me wrong -
I just am pensively reflecting on my joy that in college one could actually earn credits reading and writing essays on Tolkien's Middle Earth -
never mind me, just jealous
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Shan- I don't know how old you are, but let me tell you, this stuff is the exception. I can't believe all the horrible junk I had to read because my teachers thought it was symbolic or whatever. Psht. I read so much Faulkner and I HATE Faulkner. Not to mention that every Lit. teacher I had felt the need to point out everything that might possibly, by some stretch of the imagination, be considered a sexual reference. Here is an excerpt from an actual lecture by my 11th grade Lit. teacher.
Topic: "As I Lay Dying" -Faulkner
Mr. T- "So you see, she is picking cotton with her boyfriend. The boyfriend offers to pick half of her cotton so that they can be done faster and go off into the woods and have sex." (He looks at us as if he is waiting for some light to dawn on our faces.) "Get it? He's putting some white stuff into her sack, so that later, he can put a different kind of white stuff into a different kind of sack."
I'm so SURE that this is exactly what Faulkner was thinking when he wrote this. Actually, he's weird enough that maybe he was.
I never enjoyed even half of that stuff. "Ender's Game" should be required reading.
The guys that are changing colors represent how nauseous I felt while reading Faulkner.
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Hee hee. I had an English teacher like that. My friend and I used to amuse ourselves by throwing out erroneous interpretations just to watch him run with them.
Mr. Wood: So, his disapproval of the son's vocation is based on the societal structure of the time. Annie: *raises hand* Mr. Wood: Yes? Annie: Maybe the son is gay. Class: (muffled laughter) Mr. Wood: I've never thought of it that way... yes, I think you're right. Annie: You think that's what Dickens had in mind? Mr. Wood: Yes, I'm sure of it.
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BTW, my roommate - who is three years younger than me and from Utah, had to read Ender's Game in high school. We conversed about it one day - she said she got really sick of it because she had to read it so many times in high school.
I guess there are perks to living in Udaho.
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I've got to say that the Earthsea trilogy captures the mythological/historical feel of Tolkien better than any other fantasy I've ever read, with the exception of parts of the Prydain series. Earthsea just feels old, forgotten, utterly original. That's why I reread it every couple of years.
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Ha ha Annie! Aren't Lit. teachers silly? (I must exclude any normal lit. teachers that may be reading this thread.) I've had this experience with almost every English teacher I had. They are desperately trying to find symbolism that probably isn't there. I wonder why they do that.
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The Earthsea trilogy now runs to five books, plus some short stories. I don't know if everyone who loved A Wizard of Earthsea will like the last two (Tehanu and The Other Wind, but I certainly did.
Other favourite ULG books: the classics The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.
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I read the Earthsea books years ago, but they didn't stick in my mind at all. I can hardly remember anything. I do remember thinking they were kind of juvenile.
I loved Left Hand of Darkness, even though it was really different from what I usually enjoy.
The LeGuin story that actually affected me the most was probably Those Who Walk Away from Omelos (is that the title?). I don't know if I'll ever read it again, though, because it is just too wrenching for me. I find it hard to even reflect on, but I think that if a story can make you feel that much, either good or bad, that just shows how great it is.
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LeGuin is a fantastic author. Not one of my absolute favorites, but I like her stuff quite a bit. If you're interested in a good collection of her short stories, The Compass Rose has quite a few of my favorites. Within it, my favorite stories are "Mazes", "The Wife's Story", "Gwilian's Harp" (I may have the name wrong on that last one--it's somebody's harp, anyway), and "The Compass Rose", but really they're all fantastic; I don't think there's a mediocre story in the bunch.
"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is another incredibly powerful story, one which has been anthologized in a number of places, including OSC's "Favorite SF" type anthology from a year or two ago.
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_A Wizard of Earthsea_ is just the type of book that you might expect me to like -- and I did. But I'm finding that I'm having problems with Le Guin's endings. I love _The Left Hand of Darkness_, but again the ending dissapoints.
***** spoilers ******
Perhaps this is one of the times where my academic training comes into play, but that whole business near the end of the book with Ged sailing (or is it rowing) around in the sea running from and then facing the 'shadow' just smacked of much too facile symbolism to me. It just didn't speak to me. I kept thinking -- ummmmm, you're anthropology training is showing again Ursula.
With _Left Hand of Darkness_, I just couldn't understand the whole journey across the ice thing. Okay, so it does allow for an intense, intimate experience for Genly Ai and Estrevan, but there's something about the whole cold journey in darkness -- half adventure story/half hero's descent to the underworld -- that just didn't add up for me. Part of it, I think, is that I found the society(ies) so interesting (the intrigues, customs, etc.) that I felt cheated when the book becomes Robinson Crusoe or whatever.
I suppose I should give the rest of the Earthsea books a chance (at least the next two).
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I just recently picked up LeGuin. I read one of her books in highschool, but was not thrilled enough to hunt out more.
A few months ago I stumbled across a large Book Fair. There I picked up, and have since eagerly consumed, The Dispossed, The Left Hand of Darkness and the 1st two of the Earthsea trilogy.
She is now on my "to Buy" list.
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quote:I keep going back to Downbelow Station but it's a little bit martial for me right now. I do enjoy it when I get into it, though.
It may just be my cranial density acting up again, but what prompted mention of Downbelow Station? That book is by C.J. Cherryh, not LeGuin. I like Cherryh, but after reading Downbelow Station and the Faded Sun trilogy I noticed that I was always a little underwhelmed by her endings. I was never sure if I was missing something or if the endings just weren't that good.
Back to LeGuin, though. The original Earthsea trilogy are special to me because they were given to me on my 8th birthday. The woman that gave them to me was my good friend's mom and also the director of the after-school daycare program I went to. I always felt close to her because she had the same birthday as I did.
Interestingly enough, a friend of mine (and my wife) is LeGuin's grand-nephew.
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I find that in LeGuin's later work, she essentially prostitutes her creative talent to her ideology. I loved her stuff until Always Coming Home, which is one of the three books I have ever destroyed.
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quote:I find that in LeGuin's later work, she essentially prostitutes her creative talent to her ideology.
Her ideology is always up front, but I'm not sure what makes you say you see this change. Left Hand of Darkness was pretty thinly veiled, and it's decades old. On the other hand, The Telling is more recent, and certainly didn't seem more political. As political, but not more so. And it was good storytelling, imho.
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I really loved "Four Ways to Forgiveness". The experience of the freed slave was the most intense and personal thing to me. Her books always affect me viscerally. She's sort of understated but very intense and spiritual. She reminds me a lot of Chaim Potok.
The connections she draws between characters are absolutely vivid and true and real. For instance Ged and Tenar in "The Tombs of Atuan". The trust or friendship that springs up between them is just so perfect and right. She doesn't tell you, she shows you. It's like she says more with what she doesn't say than what she does.
There's a lot of poetry in her writing. Several of her turns of phrase stick in my mind forever. In TLoH when our hero George Orr hears an alien say "Jor Jor", and then he recognizes his own name in that "barsoomian bisyllable", for instance. Another place in TLoH she describes an old unused interstate abuttment as being "so big, so ugly, and so useless as to be to the American eye invisible." Lots of her prose just has a wonderful sound to it, like poetry, as well as being filled with trenchant and true observations about life.
There are deep feelings running through everything she writes. She writes about stuff that matters. I really love her as an author. I wish I had another dozen books of hers to read right now.
[ August 23, 2003, 10:35 PM: Message edited by: ak ]
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quote: Jane, what did you hate about Eye of the Heron? I really liked that book.
ak, it left me with a really dissatisfied feeling. It seemed incomplete. I liked how it started, but around the middle, and especially when the boy dies, I started disliking it. It's really unusual for me to hate a book as passionately as I do this one, but, eh, I just really didn't like it. Posts: 1225 | Registered: Feb 2002
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I felt really bereft when the boy died, too! Like, wait, no, this can't happen! But I liked the book for defying my expectations, I guess, plus a whole lot of activists DO die when things like that happen. I mean look at the civil rights movement. All the greatest people kept getting shot. I loved how she was able to go on after that. I thought their love was very real. I could just feel it. But it was cut off before it ever had a real chance. So sad.
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I really enjoyed her Earthsea novels. The first four I read when I was younger, but revisted them later when I found the Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind . The last short story in the Tales of Earthsea bridged the gap between Tehanu and The Other Wind . I would recommend them to anyone that is interested in fantasy. As of yet, I have little experience with her other novels though.
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You know, I slogged through the Earthsea Trilogy and it really just didn't do anything for me. It was . . . boring. The only reason I kept going was momentum, and the hope that it might start getting better.
I guess part of the problem is that for me, the events can't get too abstract. If a group of characters take a long journey, they cannot just sit around and be metaphorical. Something has to happen, and that something must be interesting completely of its own merits. I just get ticked when authors get so wrapped up in being literary that they forget to tell the story.
Incidentally, this is one of the things that I like about OSC. He has publicly stated that his main task is to tell the story, and if themes creep up it is entirely incidental.
Themes can enrich a story, so I don't mind if they are present. But they are good only as a compliment to the plot. If you're going to write a story, then write a story.
I can't actually remember if this is what I didn't like about the Earthsea series--I only remember that I kept falling asleep while I read it. But it's nice for you all that you enjoyed it.
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The one I enjoyed most I think was the most recent one, The Telling. That one actually influenced the novel I'm currently working on quite a bit.
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Ha ha Annie! Aren't Lit. teachers silly? (I must exclude any normal lit. teachers that may be reading this thread.) I've had this experience with almost every English teacher I had. They are desperately trying to find symbolism that probably isn't there. I wonder why they do that.
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